15 ms·

Samsung reveals its pre-iPhone concepts: 10 touchscreen devices

194 points by koide 14y ago

aidenn0 14y ago
IANAL, but doesn't prior-art have to be published to count?
- rshm 14y ago
  I think you only have to prove the prior existence. It does not provide patent like protection but relieves you from the patent restrictions.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  I thought the entire purpose of the Patent system was that if you _don't_ publish it, and someone else does, then that other party gets the patent protection, even if you invent it. It encourages people publish their inventions/designs/processes/etc... instead of keeping them hidden in the back office.
- debacle 14y ago
  We very recently moved in the US from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system. In the former, if you can provide evidence of the genesis of the invention before the filing of the opponent's patent, then that may invalidate their patent. Samsung might be well within their rights if they say "See, we invented it first, but didn't think it was patent worthy." I don't know the particulars on the "patent worthy" consideration.
  - cube13 14y ago
    > We very recently moved in the US from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system. In the former, if you can provide evidence of the genesis of the invention before the filing of the opponent's patent, then that may invalidate their patent. No, you would need to prove that your documented development of the invention predates the other party's documented development of the invention. Filing date does not matter in that case.
- vidarh 14y ago
  This is not to prove prior art, contrary to what the headline implies The purpose of this is to establish that Samsung did not wilfully infringe even if Apple's patents are valid (they will argue they were just in good faith continuing to evolve designs they already had that were similar), but that Apple's patents are invalid because they are dictated by function - it is logical for touch screen phones to get a large screen and reduce number of buttons, for example - and because the design elements were obvious (arguing that the existence of a wide range of similar designs, even if not published, shows that no knowledge of the iPhone was necessary for someone with ordinary knowledge of the arts to come up with something similar). Samsung has previously argued prior art previously in the form of prototype / design studies for tablets by Knight-Ridder.
  - ktsmith 14y ago
    Samsung can also point to the LG Prada which was publicly announced three weeks before the iPhone and on sale months before the iPhone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada
    - taligent 14y ago
      Firstly, it isn't about prior art so not sure why you are bringing up an LG device. Secondly, nobody is going to mistake an iPhone for an LG Prada. Nobody. But a lot of people are going to mistake an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy S.
      - incision 14y ago
        >But a lot of people are going to mistake an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy S. As I've said before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4244317 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4244317). Apple can't demonstrate 10, let alone any meaningful number of people who accidentally bought a Galaxy when they meant to pick up an iPad/iPhone. It doesn't happen.
        Someone 14y ago
- nolok 14y ago
  IANAL either, but my understanding is that Apple's complaint is that Samsung stole their entire design on purpose, while Samsung's position is "we were already working on it, we didn't willfully copy your design" (and not "we invented it first, your patents are invalid").
andy_herbert 14y ago
The Samsung F700 sure looks like an iPhone, at a distance, until you try to type on the thing and realise it has a pull-out hardware keyboard. How did that work out for successive designs? It makes you wonder if Apple really was copying off Samsung, as this article suggests, then why was no single Samsung model was as least as successful as the iPhone in the same time frame?
- KaoruAoiShiho 14y ago
  This is a huge strawman... No where is it claimed by anyone that Apple copied Samsung. The only thing that's obvious from this picture, and it is obvious, is that rectangles with rounded borders and a look a feel that's dominated by a huge screen with no ornaments is an obvious idea that Apple should not have monopoly over.
  - andy_herbert 14y ago
    > No where is it claimed by anyone that Apple copied Samsung Except in the PDF linked in the first sentence of the first paragraph.
- jeremyarussell 14y ago
  Lack of an over arching incredible vision? Lack of a genius of marketing at the helm? Those two are off the top of my head. It really just seems that Jobs led a better team to better execute stuff other people were already working on, but he saw how it could all be great. Not a bad quality by far, but not worthy of making them the only company allowed to work on touchscreen phones for sure.
- nolok 14y ago
  > if Apple really was copying off Samsung, as this article suggests That is not AT ALL what the article says. It doesn't even hint at it. Hell, it even almost says the exact contrary at the end when drawing a parallel with GUIs.
cooldeal 14y ago
Everyone seems to be getting confused about patents vs. design patents here. Can anyone explain whether design patents are at play here(the rounded corner one for the iPad from 2004) and how prior art affects design patents? Also, what if the prior art was in secret prototypes?
Terretta 14y ago
It's interesting that Samsung's before and after poster has all the screens turned off, allowing black on black designs to look edge to edge, and dismissing the look of the backlit UI, suggesting similarities far greater than they were at the time. The argument isn't about the devices on that poster. It's about Samsung's a posteriori "design" and marketing process. Their product guy's "can't design patent a black rectangle" comments are a bit disingenuous: http://copyrightcommerceandculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Samsung-Android-phone-copies-Apple-iPhone.jpg http://copyrightcommerceandculture.com/wp-content/uploads/20... Also worth noting their tablet PR screenshots, like their boxes, have stopped using the iPad's portrait icon array and started featuring landscape TouchWiz widgets instead. They were fully aware of what they were doing: Boxes before: http://www.thegalaxytab.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/galaxy-tab-unboxing.png http://www.thegalaxytab.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/galax... Boxes after: http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/9172/width/350/height/700 http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/9172/width...
- incision 14y ago
  So what? When I go to a clothing store, all the jeans and dress shirts and folded the same way and look nearly identical, same goes for the milk and eggs at the grocery store. In spite of all this I always manage to come home with the brand I set out to buy in the first place.
  - astrodust 14y ago
    So if someone's making knock-off Levi's jeans you're cool with that?
    - radley 14y ago
      You say you only buy Levi's? All other jeans are knockoffs?
    - pkulak 14y ago
      Where's the Samsung phone that says "iPhone" on it? Wranglers aren't knock off Levi's by anyone's imagination.
cobolorum 14y ago
Sure... but the Newton came before that with the interface design and much of the device design itself. In such case, Samsung and many others stole their ideas from the Newton and Apple wins anyway.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Newton patents must've expired by now. Also, if it's indeed the case that they look like the Newton, then Newton is the prior art and the patent on it has expired. This would also invalidate Apple's "new" design patents.
Tloewald 14y ago
"The 'invention' of the GUI was a very long process, which, in my view, started with Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad (1st generation GUI), and ended with the work done at Xerox (3rd generation GUI)." The article loses credibility when it suggests that the invention of the GUI stops at Xerox, when Apple invented (among many other things) drag and drop, overlapping windows, a practical mouse (that could track diagonally, didn't break down, and did more with one button than xerox did with three). But what would I know? "The Macintosh was the first computer worth criticizing." Alan Kay I'm totally on board with apple not owning rounded rectangles, but Samsung's copying of Apple has extended to literally using Apple's UI graphics in store displays.
- ajross 14y ago
  > Samsung's copying of Apple has extended to literally using Apple's UI graphics in store displays This is new to me, cite? Obviously doing that would amount to cut and dry copyright violation, and Apple would be well within its rights to demand the in-store displays be removed. But this isn't a spit about clip art. They're claiming ownership of an increasingly nebulous idea of a "tablet" (it seems it's no longer just about the narrow design patent, or about the size, or aspect ratio, or curved corners). That's a different thing, and not at all related to what you're talking about.
  - spiralpolitik 14y ago
    http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/24/who-copies-who-samsung-store-display-re-uses-apple-icons/ http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/24/who-copies-who-samsun... Last I checked the App Store and Safari were not available on Android. In fairness its a store within a store so the Samsung might not have been directly responsible.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
    Comment was referring to this: http://allthingsd.com/20110923/what-are-apples-icons-doing-on-samsungs-wall-of-apps/ http://allthingsd.com/20110923/what-are-apples-icons-doing-o...
- radley 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
eta_carinae 14y ago
Pretty damning: > One of these phones (the bottom-right one) became the Samsung F700 - a product Apple once included as an infringing product, but later withdrew once it learned Samsung created it and brought it to market before the iPhone The more this thing goes on, the more it feels like Apple is filing all the possible lawsuits they can more in order to slow down their competitors than because they have valid claims. I miss the days when they did not need to do this because their products were simply better than the competition.
- woobar 14y ago
  This been discussed a million times already: "the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007. Sales to the European market started November 2007" [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-F700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-F700 Edit: typo
  - blinkingled 14y ago
    Samsung filed a patent for the phone's design in Dec 2006. Must have been working on it at least some time before that. iPhone was introduced on Jan 9, 2007.
    - woobar 14y ago
      My argument is mostly about this bit "Samsung ... brought it to market before the iPhone". Also, I saw Korean patent reference in the article I've linked to. There is no proof of that patent. Korea patent search [1] probably broken. Doesn't return any phone patents or design patents applied for in December 2006 [1]http://detseng.kipris.or.kr/ndetsen/loin1000a.do?method=loginDG&searchType=A# http://detseng.kipris.or.kr/ndetsen/loin1000a.do?method=logi...
    - stock_toaster 14y ago
      I thought samsung manufactured large portions of the first iphone. I am sure apple spent more than a few months testing, designing, and working with manufacturing partners to build parts to spec, etc. I make no assumption on whether they did or didn't, but couldn't samsung have cribbed some notes during that timeframe?
j45 14y ago
LG KE850 also had an phone that predated the iphone with a similar design http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-and-lg-ke850-separated-at-birth/ http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-and-lg-ke850-separ...
CWIZO 14y ago
Can somebody enlighten me about something. Samsung manufactures a lot (a lot) of Apple's hardware (not just the iPhone). So the way I see it they are both dependent on each other quite a lot. OK so my question is: why are they doing this "dick measuring contest"?!
- ralfn 14y ago
  Because Jobs has a fragile ego, like a little child, and wanted to get back at Google. And its all in motion now. The rest of them are just dragged into this war. But they will fight. They will do bussiness. They are profit chasers off course. Apple on the other hand, their legal strategy is not rational. They picked a fight they couldnt win, they shouldnt win, and even if they would, we would change the rules on them; because in the end we all want some choices when buying products. Does anyone truly expect Apple to launch a full scale legal war against of all its competitors, and not get burned in the proccess? I honestly dont care. From Samsung to Google, to Microsoft. There are no saints. But these days im rooting for Apple downfall. Just because i get so tired of all the Apple apologists. I know they are victims, but at a certain point the whole Stockholm syndrome gets kind of old.
DigitalSea 14y ago
Wow, I think it's time to open up another bag of popcorn this movie just got even more interesting. Although I am not an Apple fanboy by any means, I was starting to believe for a moment that Samsung were going to lose this and then bam, they release images of concept phones including one with a very iOS like interface before the iPhone was even released. I think this situation goes to show that Apple aren't as revolutionary as they lead on or people think. Steve was a great sales man, but certainly not a visionary. Nothing about the iPhone appears to be revolutionary any more, considering Samsung amongst others were working on the same idea, it's evolutionary not revolutionary. It will be interesting to see where this leads, could Apple lose some of their iPhone patents because of all of this? This of course doesn't change the fact Samsung copied Apple's charger design and accessory packaging, but ripped off the iPhone? Nah.
davemak 14y ago
Does anyone know if these 10 touchscreen concept devices use resistive touch screens that require a stylus?

194 points by koide 14y ago

aidenn0 14y ago

IANAL, but doesn't prior-art have to be published to count?

rshm 14y ago
I think you only have to prove the prior existence. It does not provide patent like protection but relieves you from the patent restrictions.
ghshephard 14y ago
I thought the entire purpose of the Patent system was that if you _don't_ publish it, and someone else does, then that other party gets the patent protection, even if you invent it. It encourages people publish their inventions/designs/processes/etc... instead of keeping them hidden in the back office.
debacle 14y ago
We very recently moved in the US from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system. In the former, if you can provide evidence of the genesis of the invention before the filing of the opponent's patent, then that may invalidate their patent. Samsung might be well within their rights if they say "See, we invented it first, but didn't think it was patent worthy." I don't know the particulars on the "patent worthy" consideration.
- cube13 14y ago
  > We very recently moved in the US from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system. In the former, if you can provide evidence of the genesis of the invention before the filing of the opponent's patent, then that may invalidate their patent. No, you would need to prove that your documented development of the invention predates the other party's documented development of the invention. Filing date does not matter in that case.
vidarh 14y ago
This is not to prove prior art, contrary to what the headline implies The purpose of this is to establish that Samsung did not wilfully infringe even if Apple's patents are valid (they will argue they were just in good faith continuing to evolve designs they already had that were similar), but that Apple's patents are invalid because they are dictated by function - it is logical for touch screen phones to get a large screen and reduce number of buttons, for example - and because the design elements were obvious (arguing that the existence of a wide range of similar designs, even if not published, shows that no knowledge of the iPhone was necessary for someone with ordinary knowledge of the arts to come up with something similar). Samsung has previously argued prior art previously in the form of prototype / design studies for tablets by Knight-Ridder.
- ktsmith 14y ago
  Samsung can also point to the LG Prada which was publicly announced three weeks before the iPhone and on sale months before the iPhone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada
  - taligent 14y ago
    Firstly, it isn't about prior art so not sure why you are bringing up an LG device. Secondly, nobody is going to mistake an iPhone for an LG Prada. Nobody. But a lot of people are going to mistake an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy S.
    - incision 14y ago
      >But a lot of people are going to mistake an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy S. As I've said before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4244317 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4244317). Apple can't demonstrate 10, let alone any meaningful number of people who accidentally bought a Galaxy when they meant to pick up an iPad/iPhone. It doesn't happen.
      - Someone 14y ago
nolok 14y ago
IANAL either, but my understanding is that Apple's complaint is that Samsung stole their entire design on purpose, while Samsung's position is "we were already working on it, we didn't willfully copy your design" (and not "we invented it first, your patents are invalid").

andy_herbert 14y ago

The Samsung F700 sure looks like an iPhone, at a distance, until you try to type on the thing and realise it has a pull-out hardware keyboard. How did that work out for successive designs? It makes you wonder if Apple really was copying off Samsung, as this article suggests, then why was no single Samsung model was as least as successful as the iPhone in the same time frame?

KaoruAoiShiho 14y ago
This is a huge strawman... No where is it claimed by anyone that Apple copied Samsung. The only thing that's obvious from this picture, and it is obvious, is that rectangles with rounded borders and a look a feel that's dominated by a huge screen with no ornaments is an obvious idea that Apple should not have monopoly over.
- andy_herbert 14y ago
  > No where is it claimed by anyone that Apple copied Samsung Except in the PDF linked in the first sentence of the first paragraph.
jeremyarussell 14y ago
Lack of an over arching incredible vision? Lack of a genius of marketing at the helm? Those two are off the top of my head. It really just seems that Jobs led a better team to better execute stuff other people were already working on, but he saw how it could all be great. Not a bad quality by far, but not worthy of making them the only company allowed to work on touchscreen phones for sure.
nolok 14y ago
> if Apple really was copying off Samsung, as this article suggests That is not AT ALL what the article says. It doesn't even hint at it. Hell, it even almost says the exact contrary at the end when drawing a parallel with GUIs.

cooldeal 14y ago

Everyone seems to be getting confused about patents vs. design patents here. Can anyone explain whether design patents are at play here(the rounded corner one for the iPad from 2004) and how prior art affects design patents? Also, what if the prior art was in secret prototypes?

Terretta 14y ago

It's interesting that Samsung's before and after poster has all the screens turned off, allowing black on black designs to look edge to edge, and dismissing the look of the backlit UI, suggesting similarities far greater than they were at the time. The argument isn't about the devices on that poster. It's about Samsung's a posteriori "design" and marketing process. Their product guy's "can't design patent a black rectangle" comments are a bit disingenuous: http://copyrightcommerceandculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Samsung-Android-phone-copies-Apple-iPhone.jpg http://copyrightcommerceandculture.com/wp-content/uploads/20... Also worth noting their tablet PR screenshots, like their boxes, have stopped using the iPad's portrait icon array and started featuring landscape TouchWiz widgets instead. They were fully aware of what they were doing: Boxes before: http://www.thegalaxytab.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/galaxy-tab-unboxing.png http://www.thegalaxytab.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/galax... Boxes after: http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/9172/width/350/height/700 http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/9172/width...

incision 14y ago
So what? When I go to a clothing store, all the jeans and dress shirts and folded the same way and look nearly identical, same goes for the milk and eggs at the grocery store. In spite of all this I always manage to come home with the brand I set out to buy in the first place.
- astrodust 14y ago
  So if someone's making knock-off Levi's jeans you're cool with that?
  - radley 14y ago
    You say you only buy Levi's? All other jeans are knockoffs?
  - pkulak 14y ago
    Where's the Samsung phone that says "iPhone" on it? Wranglers aren't knock off Levi's by anyone's imagination.

cobolorum 14y ago

Sure... but the Newton came before that with the interface design and much of the device design itself. In such case, Samsung and many others stole their ideas from the Newton and Apple wins anyway.

mtgx 14y ago
Newton patents must've expired by now. Also, if it's indeed the case that they look like the Newton, then Newton is the prior art and the patent on it has expired. This would also invalidate Apple's "new" design patents.

Tloewald 14y ago

"The 'invention' of the GUI was a very long process, which, in my view, started with Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad (1st generation GUI), and ended with the work done at Xerox (3rd generation GUI)." The article loses credibility when it suggests that the invention of the GUI stops at Xerox, when Apple invented (among many other things) drag and drop, overlapping windows, a practical mouse (that could track diagonally, didn't break down, and did more with one button than xerox did with three). But what would I know? "The Macintosh was the first computer worth criticizing." Alan Kay I'm totally on board with apple not owning rounded rectangles, but Samsung's copying of Apple has extended to literally using Apple's UI graphics in store displays.

ajross 14y ago
> Samsung's copying of Apple has extended to literally using Apple's UI graphics in store displays This is new to me, cite? Obviously doing that would amount to cut and dry copyright violation, and Apple would be well within its rights to demand the in-store displays be removed. But this isn't a spit about clip art. They're claiming ownership of an increasingly nebulous idea of a "tablet" (it seems it's no longer just about the narrow design patent, or about the size, or aspect ratio, or curved corners). That's a different thing, and not at all related to what you're talking about.
- spiralpolitik 14y ago
  http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/24/who-copies-who-samsung-store-display-re-uses-apple-icons/ http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/24/who-copies-who-samsun... Last I checked the App Store and Safari were not available on Android. In fairness its a store within a store so the Samsung might not have been directly responsible.
- 2muchcoffeeman 14y ago
  Comment was referring to this: http://allthingsd.com/20110923/what-are-apples-icons-doing-on-samsungs-wall-of-apps/ http://allthingsd.com/20110923/what-are-apples-icons-doing-o...
radley 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

eta_carinae 14y ago

Pretty damning: > One of these phones (the bottom-right one) became the Samsung F700 - a product Apple once included as an infringing product, but later withdrew once it learned Samsung created it and brought it to market before the iPhone The more this thing goes on, the more it feels like Apple is filing all the possible lawsuits they can more in order to slow down their competitors than because they have valid claims. I miss the days when they did not need to do this because their products were simply better than the competition.

woobar 14y ago
This been discussed a million times already: "the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007. Sales to the European market started November 2007" [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-F700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-F700 Edit: typo
- blinkingled 14y ago
  Samsung filed a patent for the phone's design in Dec 2006. Must have been working on it at least some time before that. iPhone was introduced on Jan 9, 2007.
  - woobar 14y ago
    My argument is mostly about this bit "Samsung ... brought it to market before the iPhone". Also, I saw Korean patent reference in the article I've linked to. There is no proof of that patent. Korea patent search [1] probably broken. Doesn't return any phone patents or design patents applied for in December 2006 [1]http://detseng.kipris.or.kr/ndetsen/loin1000a.do?method=loginDG&searchType=A# http://detseng.kipris.or.kr/ndetsen/loin1000a.do?method=logi...
  - stock_toaster 14y ago
    I thought samsung manufactured large portions of the first iphone. I am sure apple spent more than a few months testing, designing, and working with manufacturing partners to build parts to spec, etc. I make no assumption on whether they did or didn't, but couldn't samsung have cribbed some notes during that timeframe?

j45 14y ago

LG KE850 also had an phone that predated the iphone with a similar design http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-and-lg-ke850-separated-at-birth/ http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-and-lg-ke850-separ...

CWIZO 14y ago

Can somebody enlighten me about something. Samsung manufactures a lot (a lot) of Apple's hardware (not just the iPhone). So the way I see it they are both dependent on each other quite a lot. OK so my question is: why are they doing this "dick measuring contest"?!

ralfn 14y ago
Because Jobs has a fragile ego, like a little child, and wanted to get back at Google. And its all in motion now. The rest of them are just dragged into this war. But they will fight. They will do bussiness. They are profit chasers off course. Apple on the other hand, their legal strategy is not rational. They picked a fight they couldnt win, they shouldnt win, and even if they would, we would change the rules on them; because in the end we all want some choices when buying products. Does anyone truly expect Apple to launch a full scale legal war against of all its competitors, and not get burned in the proccess? I honestly dont care. From Samsung to Google, to Microsoft. There are no saints. But these days im rooting for Apple downfall. Just because i get so tired of all the Apple apologists. I know they are victims, but at a certain point the whole Stockholm syndrome gets kind of old.

DigitalSea 14y ago

Wow, I think it's time to open up another bag of popcorn this movie just got even more interesting. Although I am not an Apple fanboy by any means, I was starting to believe for a moment that Samsung were going to lose this and then bam, they release images of concept phones including one with a very iOS like interface before the iPhone was even released. I think this situation goes to show that Apple aren't as revolutionary as they lead on or people think. Steve was a great sales man, but certainly not a visionary. Nothing about the iPhone appears to be revolutionary any more, considering Samsung amongst others were working on the same idea, it's evolutionary not revolutionary. It will be interesting to see where this leads, could Apple lose some of their iPhone patents because of all of this? This of course doesn't change the fact Samsung copied Apple's charger design and accessory packaging, but ripped off the iPhone? Nah.

davemak 14y ago

Does anyone know if these 10 touchscreen concept devices use resistive touch screens that require a stylus?